7 ms·

Why did they send you home if you were so close to childbirth?

by carlmr 3y ago

Robin_Message 3y ago
Medical professionals ability to ignore, belittle, and misdiagnose women is unfortunately legendary. Also, labour can occur surprisingly quickly, as happened to a friend of ours who gave birth on our driveway whilst dropping off their first child on the way to the hospital.
- concordDance 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - _petronius 3y ago
    Women aren't more "neurotic", that simply isn't true (and jesus dude, 1950s much?). There is extensive literature out there just a google away on the consistent misdiagnosis and under-treatment of women, both as a general trend and for particular diagnoses like heart attack or ADHD. The dismissal of "It's not a woman specific thing" belies the truth that there are women-specific biases against taking self-reported symptoms into account and receiving proper care, and data-collection biases where there simply isn't as much or as sufficient research in how the same disease presents differently in women. Similar data exists for other groups (for example, pain treatment disparities for black people, because actual doctors with medical degrees think black people have "thicker skin" or "less nerve endings"), but we can acknowledge several kinds of systemic failure of medicine to meet the needs of whole classes of patients without undermining the rightful complains of those individual groups.
    - automatic6131 3y ago
      >Women aren't more "neurotic", that simply isn't true On average, they very much are. Source: I have friends of both sexes. They're also shorter, anyone disputing that?
      - sterlind 3y ago
        I looked it up and women are more neurotic on average, apparently (using the Big Five personality trait definition). specifically, GAD and panic disorder are nearly twice as common in women [1], and somatic symptom disorder (preoccupation with symptoms) is 10x more commonly diagnosed in women [2] (though [3] suggests the true prevalence may be much more equal.) this isn't surprising to me, as a woman with several anxiety disorders - sex hormones have profound effects on the brain, and it matches my experience. the issue is that doctors see more neurotic women than men who present with complaints that turn out to be benign, so they become dismissive. but women still get sick, even us hypochondriacs, so having a doctor primed to dismiss your issues is dangerous. 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395611000458 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223... 2. https://www.physio-pedia.com/Somatic_Symptom_Disorder https://www.physio-pedia.com/Somatic_Symptom_Disorder (I've had trouble finding a non-paywalled source for the 10:1 but it seems to come from Medscape.) 3.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2150131909353333 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/215013190935333...
      - LocalH 3y ago
        I don't think "on average" is a very useful metric in general (unless you're also narrowing the qualification greatly via other metrics too, to shrink the pool of people that contribute to the average), because that tends to subconsciously translate to "default assumption".
    - quotz 3y ago
      Theres extensive literature covering research into neuroticism, which women score higher in.
      - idiotsecant 3y ago
        If it's so extensive you wouldn't mind listing 2 or 3, right?
    - red75prime 3y ago
      > and jesus dude, 1950s much? Nah, it's 2023 and problems are a bit different: https://stuartritchie.substack.com/p/nih-genetics https://stuartritchie.substack.com/p/nih-genetics
    - claytongulick 3y ago
      The reference is to the Big 5 personality traits, which are well researched [1]. Women also score higher (on average) on Extraversion and Agreeableness. If you aren't familiar with this research it's worth your time to learn about. Even in 2023. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21866227/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21866227/
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        "The big five" has not been shown to be predictive, or useful scientifically, and is more an artifact of the statistical modelling used to interpret the data, which is heavily based on interpretation, which makes it prone to the normal human failures and biases.
        BizarroLand 3y ago
        Source?
        claytongulick 3y ago
        Wikipedia has a decent critique section [1] which enumerates the points that GP seems to be making. Of course, these are academic critiques which vary widely - none of which would support the assertion that the model is "not useful scientifically". I'd be very surprised if any of the qualified academics that critique the Big 5 model would make such a claim. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
    - concordDance 3y ago
      > Women aren't more "neurotic", that simply isn't true They're half a standard deviation more neurotic and have a very slightly wider distribution[1]. This means that there won't be much difference between the average man and woman but that the extremes of neuroticism that doctors experience (and memory!) will be biased towards will be heavily woman dominated. [1] Table 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/
  - laserlight 3y ago
    > In general patients are very noisy information sources that will tell you lots of spurious things which turn out to be nothing. Maybe I'm misreading the above statement, but isn't it the responsibility of medical professionals to ask right questions? How could medically illiterate people be not noisy, when they don't know the causal relationship between medical phenomena.
  - sgentle 3y ago
    > It's not a woman specific thing. That's sufficiently incorrect that there's an entire subfield of medicine dedicated to how incorrect it is. If you're interested in learning more, this is a pretty good study to start with: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08475-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08475-9
- rm_-rf_slash 3y ago
  My mother recalls hearing doctors saying she was too calm to deliver on the day I was born. By the time it was clear I was on the way it was too late to administer anesthesia. But it was not the doctor’s pain to feel.
debok 3y ago
Probably by mistake. Every childbirth is different. Mostly things progress slowly, sometimes it happens quickly. Usually they measure the regularity and intensity of the contractions. If the contractions are short and far between, the hospital will send the mother home, because it will probably be several hours before the child comes. However, some childbirths don't follow these rules.
te_chris 3y ago
It’s common to bring women in early labour in then send them home for a bit to wait it out until contractions become more frequent. At least, here in the UK that’s common. Idea is better to be more relaxed while the body does its thing.
- Balgair 3y ago
  As if a woman in labor could ever possibly be 'more relaxed'!
  - texuf 3y ago
    This is a thing! Lots of things can “stall” contractions, prolonging the already long and drawn out process that opens up a woman so that she can pass a child through an opening normally no larger than a pipet. Lights, beeping, iv’s, etc.
    - Balgair 3y ago
      I think we have a difference of the definition of 'relaxed' in this case. A normal definition would be along the lines of sipping mai-tais on the beach. But in the case of active labor, then yes, you're correct. I have close family members that are quite familiar with stalled labor (30+ hours). However, in that particular case, it was due to really bad doctors.
micromacrofoot 3y ago
sometimes women go too early (cervix not dilated a certain amount yet, contractions are too far apart) and the hospital doesn't want to occupy a bed for someone who might still be a full day away from active labor
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I just wonder why giving birth in the hospital is so normalized; if there's no warning signs during pregnancy or close to birth, wouldn't it be better for everyone involved (mother, child, health care system) to deliver at home? No emergency / stressful trip to the hospital, no roadside / parking lot births, no stress of being in a foreign environment, and you still get taken care of at home by a rotation of midwives.

Why did they send you home if you were so close to childbirth?

by carlmr 3y ago

Why did they send you home if you were so close to childbirth?

Medical professionals ability to ignore, belittle, and misdiagnose women is unfortunately legendary. Also, labour can occur surprisingly quickly, as happened to a friend of ours who gave birth on our driveway whilst dropping off their first child on the way to the hospital.

concordDance 3y ago
[flagged]
- _petronius 3y ago
  Women aren't more "neurotic", that simply isn't true (and jesus dude, 1950s much?). There is extensive literature out there just a google away on the consistent misdiagnosis and under-treatment of women, both as a general trend and for particular diagnoses like heart attack or ADHD. The dismissal of "It's not a woman specific thing" belies the truth that there are women-specific biases against taking self-reported symptoms into account and receiving proper care, and data-collection biases where there simply isn't as much or as sufficient research in how the same disease presents differently in women. Similar data exists for other groups (for example, pain treatment disparities for black people, because actual doctors with medical degrees think black people have "thicker skin" or "less nerve endings"), but we can acknowledge several kinds of systemic failure of medicine to meet the needs of whole classes of patients without undermining the rightful complains of those individual groups.
  - automatic6131 3y ago
    >Women aren't more "neurotic", that simply isn't true On average, they very much are. Source: I have friends of both sexes. They're also shorter, anyone disputing that?
    - sterlind 3y ago
      I looked it up and women are more neurotic on average, apparently (using the Big Five personality trait definition). specifically, GAD and panic disorder are nearly twice as common in women [1], and somatic symptom disorder (preoccupation with symptoms) is 10x more commonly diagnosed in women [2] (though [3] suggests the true prevalence may be much more equal.) this isn't surprising to me, as a woman with several anxiety disorders - sex hormones have profound effects on the brain, and it matches my experience. the issue is that doctors see more neurotic women than men who present with complaints that turn out to be benign, so they become dismissive. but women still get sick, even us hypochondriacs, so having a doctor primed to dismiss your issues is dangerous. 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395611000458 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223... 2. https://www.physio-pedia.com/Somatic_Symptom_Disorder https://www.physio-pedia.com/Somatic_Symptom_Disorder (I've had trouble finding a non-paywalled source for the 10:1 but it seems to come from Medscape.) 3.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2150131909353333 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/215013190935333...
    - LocalH 3y ago
      I don't think "on average" is a very useful metric in general (unless you're also narrowing the qualification greatly via other metrics too, to shrink the pool of people that contribute to the average), because that tends to subconsciously translate to "default assumption".
  - quotz 3y ago
    Theres extensive literature covering research into neuroticism, which women score higher in.
    - idiotsecant 3y ago
      If it's so extensive you wouldn't mind listing 2 or 3, right?
  - red75prime 3y ago
    > and jesus dude, 1950s much? Nah, it's 2023 and problems are a bit different: https://stuartritchie.substack.com/p/nih-genetics https://stuartritchie.substack.com/p/nih-genetics
  - claytongulick 3y ago
    The reference is to the Big 5 personality traits, which are well researched [1]. Women also score higher (on average) on Extraversion and Agreeableness. If you aren't familiar with this research it's worth your time to learn about. Even in 2023. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21866227/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21866227/
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      "The big five" has not been shown to be predictive, or useful scientifically, and is more an artifact of the statistical modelling used to interpret the data, which is heavily based on interpretation, which makes it prone to the normal human failures and biases.
      - BizarroLand 3y ago
        Source?
        claytongulick 3y ago
        Wikipedia has a decent critique section [1] which enumerates the points that GP seems to be making. Of course, these are academic critiques which vary widely - none of which would support the assertion that the model is "not useful scientifically". I'd be very surprised if any of the qualified academics that critique the Big 5 model would make such a claim. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
  - concordDance 3y ago
    > Women aren't more "neurotic", that simply isn't true They're half a standard deviation more neurotic and have a very slightly wider distribution[1]. This means that there won't be much difference between the average man and woman but that the extremes of neuroticism that doctors experience (and memory!) will be biased towards will be heavily woman dominated. [1] Table 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/
- laserlight 3y ago
  > In general patients are very noisy information sources that will tell you lots of spurious things which turn out to be nothing. Maybe I'm misreading the above statement, but isn't it the responsibility of medical professionals to ask right questions? How could medically illiterate people be not noisy, when they don't know the causal relationship between medical phenomena.
- sgentle 3y ago
  > It's not a woman specific thing. That's sufficiently incorrect that there's an entire subfield of medicine dedicated to how incorrect it is. If you're interested in learning more, this is a pretty good study to start with: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08475-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08475-9
rm_-rf_slash 3y ago
My mother recalls hearing doctors saying she was too calm to deliver on the day I was born. By the time it was clear I was on the way it was too late to administer anesthesia. But it was not the doctor’s pain to feel.

debok 3y ago

Probably by mistake. Every childbirth is different. Mostly things progress slowly, sometimes it happens quickly. Usually they measure the regularity and intensity of the contractions. If the contractions are short and far between, the hospital will send the mother home, because it will probably be several hours before the child comes. However, some childbirths don't follow these rules.

te_chris 3y ago

It’s common to bring women in early labour in then send them home for a bit to wait it out until contractions become more frequent. At least, here in the UK that’s common. Idea is better to be more relaxed while the body does its thing.

Balgair 3y ago
As if a woman in labor could ever possibly be 'more relaxed'!
- texuf 3y ago
  This is a thing! Lots of things can “stall” contractions, prolonging the already long and drawn out process that opens up a woman so that she can pass a child through an opening normally no larger than a pipet. Lights, beeping, iv’s, etc.
  - Balgair 3y ago
    I think we have a difference of the definition of 'relaxed' in this case. A normal definition would be along the lines of sipping mai-tais on the beach. But in the case of active labor, then yes, you're correct. I have close family members that are quite familiar with stalled labor (30+ hours). However, in that particular case, it was due to really bad doctors.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

sometimes women go too early (cervix not dilated a certain amount yet, contractions are too far apart) and the hospital doesn't want to occupy a bed for someone who might still be a full day away from active labor

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I just wonder why giving birth in the hospital is so normalized; if there's no warning signs during pregnancy or close to birth, wouldn't it be better for everyone involved (mother, child, health care system) to deliver at home? No emergency / stressful trip to the hospital, no roadside / parking lot births, no stress of being in a foreign environment, and you still get taken care of at home by a rotation of midwives.